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According to some of the latest statistics, employers are flooded with job applications. In the UK alone, employers running graduate training schemes received an average of 140 applications for each job in 2024, 59 percent more than in 2023, according to at the Institute of Student Employers. And despite some trepidation Among a few recruiters, many companies are turning to AI platforms to help, especially given that generation Z now also overcome the Millennial population in numbers.
No doubt this was a factor in the news that Maki — which has a conversational AI agent based on skills assessment for job interviews and candidate filtering — has now raised a $28.6 million Series A funding led by the UK . Flower capital. DST Global and existing investors Frst, GFC and Picus Capital also participated. It had previously raised €11 million in previous funding rounds. The money will be used to accelerate the product path, expand in the United States, and expand the team.
Founded in 2022 by Maxime Legardez, Paul-Louis Caylar, and Benjamin Chino, the Maki platform interviews candidates by voice, video or text. The company claims to have experienced growth of more than 300% in 2024, having secured hiring contracts in more than 50 markets with companies such as H&M, BNP Paribas, PwC, Deloitte, FIFA, Abercrombie and Capgemini. It also claims that its platform can simplify hiring, create a better experience for candidates and reduce employee turnover.
Maki’s AI-based agents converse with prospective candidates in natural language, and, the company says, can automate the process by 80%, with a 3x reduction in hiring time.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Maxime Legardez, CEO of Maki, said: “We use AI to build agents that our customers can customize to their needs, and basically agents to replicate the tasks done by humans in recruiting. Our agents can source, screen, schedule and interview candidates.”
He said that the agent built for the clothing giant H&M is called Maria. She can call candidates on the phone or be a visual avatar in a video call: “We have an avatar embedded with Synthesia, so it’s a very visual experience. She can talk 24/7 to candidates in several languages and have conversations of 5, 10 or 15 minutes with candidates to assess hundreds of skills,” said Legardez.
He added that the AI is able to evaluate the candidate for customer empathy, collaboration or resilience, among other things.
However, if it sounds impersonal, it is far from it, especially given the number of candidates he has to interact with, said Legardez: “If a candidate is rejected, he receives personalized feedback, with some tips to learn new things to help improve his chances next time, making him a good brand ambassador as well.” He said: “98% of candidates for BNP Paribas now say that this is the best recruitment process of their life, and it increases their willingness to join BNP Paribas.”
In addition, despite it being a so-called era of the death of DEI, Legardez said that Maki shows much less bias than humans: “We have been verified by the state of New York, and it has been proven that our AI creates less bias than humans. a human towards ethnicity, gender and age, and the more data we have, the better we can calibrate and pre-form it.” Who knows, maybe AI recruitment will lead to even more diverse workforces in the future?
Maki’s competitors include companies such as SHL, EON, Pymetrics and Saville. Recruite CRM, BrainTrust, Recruitee, Manatal, and many others.
However, Legardez says Maki sells less traditional HR software, as much as “working through our agents, automating the work of humans.”
Legardez previously built Everoad, a digital freight forwarder, which was acquired by Sennder.
In a statement, Ophelia Brown, Partner at Blossom Capital, said: “We believe Maki agents have the potential to enable large organizations to reach the next level of efficiency and decision-making, redefining how HR drives business success. “.
Maki’s fundraising is certainly trending. Today, LinkedIn released a new AI product, Jobs Match, immediate advice on whether a particular job opening is worth the time to apply.
